Device for threading a ribbon through a hem

ABSTRACT

Two wires resiliently diverge rearward from a pilot body and are doubled back towards the pilot body, thereby forming two divergent two-wire arms with loops at their outer ends to engage the leading end of a ribbon or elastic band at two laterally spaced points. The doubled-back wires have pointed ends to pierce the ribbon and the pilot body is adapted to releasably engage and shield the two pointed ends. The two doubled-back wires are formed with offsets to serve as finger grips for maneuvering the pointed ends into or out of engagement with the pilot body.

United States Patent Williams May 27, 1975 DEVICE FOR THREADING A RIBBON THROUGH A HEM [76] Inventor: Penelope Williams, 3364 Nevada Ave., Costa Mesa, Calif. 92626 [22] Filed: Feb. 19, 1974 [2]] Appl. No.: 443,225

[52] US. Cl 223/103; 223/l05 [5]] Int. Cl D04d 11/00 [58] Field of Search 223/103, 105

[56] References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,356,124 10/1920 Bennett 223/103 l,859,489 5/l932 Appleyard 223/105 2.546.601 3/1951 Husarik 223/l05 Primary Examiner-George H. Krizmanich Attorney, Agent, or Firm-Herbert E. Kidder [57] ABSTRACT Two wires resiliently diverge rearward from a pilot body and are doubled back towards the pilot body, thereby forming two divergent two-wire arms with loops at their outer ends to engage the leading end of a ribbon or elastic band at two laterally spaced points. The doubled-back wires have pointed ends to pierce the ribbon and the pilot body is adapted to releasably engage and shield the two pointed ends. The two doubled-back wires are formed with offsets to serve as finger grips for maneuvering the pointed ends into or out of engagement with the pilot body.

4 Claims, 7 Drawing Figures DEVICE FOR THREADING A RIBBON THROUGH A HEM BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION The problem involved in employing a bodkin or lateing device to thread a ribbon or elastic through a tunnel or hem in a garment is the tendency of the ribbon to fold laterally and to twist about a longitudinal axis of the ribbon as it is drawn through the tunnel. For exam plc, a common expedient is to engage a safety pin with the leading end of a ribbon and to use the safety pin as a pilot to draw the ribbon through the garment hem. In such an operation, however. the ribbon is stressed in tension along a linear axis that extends rearward from the point where the safety pin pierces the ribbon. and thus the ribbon tends to twist about this axis as it progresses through the length of the hem. even though the ribbon may be held flat as it enters the hem. As the ribbon emerges from the far end of the hem it may appear flat and a shiny side of the ribbon may face in the direction indicating that the ribbon has not twisted at all, but nevertheless the ribbon may be twisted along its length with the twist concealed by the hem.

ln Payne U.S. Pat. No. 833,799, what is termed a tape needle comprises a narrow strip of sheet metal formed with a pilot head at its leading end, similar to the head of a safety pin, and the trailing end of the strip of metal pivots a wire that forms two forward pointed arms that may be releasably engaged and shielded by the pilot head. The Payne device is better than a conventional safety pin because the base ends of the two forwardly extending wire arms aae spaced apart laterally of each other to engage the leading end ofa ribbon at laterally spaced points. If a tape is narrower than the fixed spacing of the base portion of the two arms, however. only one point of the leading end of the ribbon can be pierced and in that case the device has all the disadvantages ofa single safety pin. On the other hand, if the ribbon is substantially wider than the spacing of the base ends ofthe two wires. the two lines of longitudinal tension created by the device will necessarily be spaced substantially inward from the longitudinal side edges of the ribbon with corresponding reduced capability of the device to keep the ribbon from twisting.

Both the Nicodemus U.S. Pat. No. l,l49,397 and Dolphin U.S. Pat. No. 1,452,030 disclose a bodkin with a trailing end that can be inserted across the width of the leading end ofa ribbon, but the trailing end of the bodkin is of fixed width. If a ribbon is wider than this fixed width, the ribbon is stressed in a relatively narrow zone with consequent tendency of the ribbon to twist about the narrow longitudinal zone of stress.

Gatlin U.S. Pat. No. l,834,61 l discloses what is termed a tape needle that comprises a wire bent to the U-shaped configuration of a hairpin to form a rounded pilot nose with two wire arms extending rearward from the nose and the rear ends of the two wires forming pointed hooks to engage the fabric of the leading end of a ribbon, A flat sheet metal sleeve embraces the two Wires and slides rearwardly to serve as a guard and shield for the pointed hooks. One disadvantage of such a device is that the flat slidable sleeve may easily become lost, making the device useless for its purpose. Another disadvantage, of course, is that the spacing between the two wire hooks is limited to a given maximum spacing by the flat sleeve, and ifa ribbon is wider than this spacing, the effectiveness of the device to prevent twisting of the ribbon is correspondingly lessened.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION One important object of the present invention is to place the full width of a leading end ofa ribbon under transverse tension to hold its leading end flat. With the leading end of the ribbon held flat by the lacing device disclosed herein and with the ribbon maintained flat as it feeds into the entrance of the hem, the ribbon stays flat, without twist throughout its length as it is drawn through the hem.

To make this mode of operation possible, the lacing device comprises a pilot body with two rearwardly extending arms that are adapted to engage the leading end of a ribbon at two transversely spaced points near its opposite side edges, and the two arms are resiliently biased to spread apart for the purpose of placing the leading end of the ribbon under transverse tension.

An object of the invention of primary importance is to provide such a device that is capable of cooperating effectively with ribbons that vary in width through a wide range. For this purpose, the two resilient arms of the device are biased to spread apart to place in transverse tension a ribbon of the maximum width that is intended to be engaged by the device. Since the two divergent arms are resilient, they may be flexed toward one another to engage and transversely tension all ribbons that are smaller in width than the maximum width. For example, the two arms may be resiliently biased to spread apart by a distance somewhat greater than 1 A, for effective cooperation with the leading ends of ribbons of a wide range of widths up to l kinetics.

A further object of the invention is to provide a lac ing device that is of simple, inexpensive construction. This object is accomplished by a construction which consists solely of a smoothly rounded pilot body made of plastic or metal, and a single piece of spring wire that is pointed at both ends. The midpoint of the wire is bent to form a forward loop that is embedded in the pilot body, with the two divergent arms of the wire extending rearwardly from the pilot body. These two rearwardly extending wires are doubled back on themselves to form elongate loops for engagement with the leading end of a ribbon. The free ends of the doubled-back wires are formed with sharp points, and the pilot body is adapted to releasably engage and shield the pointed wire ends. Thus the device may be described as having two rearwardly divergent resilient arms with means at their outer ends to engage the end of a ribbon. The pilot body has a transversely extending cavity to receive and shield the two forward pointed ends and the cavity has a suitable entrance for these ends.

A still further object of the invention is to make the lacing device easy to use by providing means to facilitate the maneuvering of the two pointed ends into the shielding cavity in the pilot body. For this purpose the two pointed doubled-back wires are shaped with inter mediate offsets which serves as finger grips for engagement by the fingers of the user to flex the doubled-back wires sufficiently for their pointed ends to enter the cavity in the pilot body.

The various features and advantages of the invention will become apparent from the following detailed description of the preferred embodiment thereof. taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS:

FIG. I is a plan view of the presently preferred embodiment of the lacing device of the invention, with the two pointed wire ends seated in the shielding cavity of the pilot head;

FIG. 2 is a side elevational view of the device;

FIG. 3 is a longitudinal sectional view as seen along line 3-3 of FIG. 1;

FIG. 4 is a plan view similar to FIG. I, with the two pointed wire ends released from the pilot body;

FIG. 5 is an enlarged transverse section of the pilot body, taken along line 55 of FIG. 1;

FIG. 6 is a plan view of the device engaged with the end of a relatively wide ribbon; and

FIG. 7 is a view similar to FIG. 6, showing the device engaged with the end of a relatively narrow ribbon.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT The presently preferred embodiment of the invention shown in the drawings includes a plastic pilot body 10 formed with a smooth rounded nose 12, and having two resilient spring wires 14 extending rearwadly from the pilot body. The two spring wires 14 are doubled back toward the pilot body 10 and thus form corresponding loops I5 and corresponding doubled-back wires 16 extending forwardly from the two loops respectively.

The two doubled-back wires 16 have piinted forward ends 18 and the pilot body 10 normally releasably engages and shields these two pointed ends. For this purpose, the pilot body may be formed with a cavity 20 which has an open rearward end 22, as shown in FIG. 3, and has a relatively narrow entrance slot 24 of the configuration shown in FIGS. 1 and 5.

The two rearwardly extending spring wires 14 are biased to diverge to such an extent that when the pointed ends 18 of the doubled-back wires 16 are engaged by the pilot body as shown in FIG. 1, the distance a between the two loops is somewhat greater than the maximum width in the range of widths of ribbons with which the device is intended to cooperate. For example. the distance a may be somewhat greater than I A inches for cooperation of the device with ribbons ranging in width up to 1 V2 inches.

When the two doubled-back wires 16 are unrestrained, as shown in FIG. 4, they are both spaced from the pilot body laterally thereof, so that the two pointed ends I8 may be inserted through the material ofa leading end of a ribbon at points near the opposite longitudinal sides of the ribbon and then the ribbon may be slid back on the wires 16 until the loops l5 engage the ribbon. The forward points ends 18 of the doubledback wires I6 may then be maneuvered through the entrance slot 24 into the cavity so that they are shielded by the pilot body as shown in FIG. 6. It may be seen in FIG. 5 that the cavity 20, in effect, forms hooks that restrain the pointed wire ends 18 against their resilient tendency to spread apart.

In FIG. 6, a ribbon 25 that is engaged by the wire loops 15 of a width somewhat less than the distance a in FIG. 1, with the consequence that the two divergent arms formed by the pairs of wires 14, 16 are stressed to place the leading end of the ribbon under transverse tension to hold it flat. With the lacing device holding the leading end of the ribbon 25 flat as it is drawn into a tunnel 26 formed in a hem 27 ofa garment, it is a simple matter to keep the ribbon flat as it enters the tunnel and thus assure that the installed ribbon will be flat and free from twist throughout the hem.

A feature of the invention is the concept of forming the two doubled back wires 16 with offsets 28 to serve as finger grips to facilitate maneuvering of the pointed wire ends 18 into and out of engagement with the pilot body 10. It can be seen in FIG. 2 that the offsets 28 extend laterally from the plane that is defined by the two rearwardly extending wires 14. Thus, when the doubled-back wires 16 are spread away from the pilot body I0 as shown in FIG. 4, it is a simple matter for the user to engage the offsets 28 by the fingers to flex the doubled-back wires together for maneuvering the pointed ends 18 through the entrance slot 24 of the pilot body into the cavity 20. In like manner, with the pointed ends 18 in engagement with the pilot body 10, as shown in FIGS. 1 and 6, it is again a simple matter for the user to engage the offsets 28 with his fingers to pinch the offsets towards each other for maneuvering the pointed ends 18 out of the entrance slot of the pilot body to release the wires.

The manner in which the lacing device of the invention functions for its intended purpose may be readily understood from the foregoing description. When the device is not in use, the two pointed ends 18 of the doubled-back wires 16 are engaged and shielded by the pilot body 10 as shown in FIG. I so that no hazard is involved in handling the device. In preparation for threading a leading end of a ribbon through a hem, the two offsets 28 are engaged by the user's fingers to maneuver the pointed ends 18 out of the cavity 20 of the pilot body, thereby permitting the two doubled back wires 16 to take the unrestrained positions shown in FIG. 4. It is then a simple matter to pierce the leading end of the ribbon at widely-spaced points with the two pointed ends 18 and then slide the ribbon along the doubled-back wires 16 until the ribbon is engaged by the loops 15. The user may then again engage the two offsets 28 with his fingers to maneuver the pointed ends of of the doubled-back wires 16 into engagement with the pilot body 10 as shown in FIG. 6.

After the ribbon has been drawn through the length of the tunnel 26 in the hem 27, the two offsets facilitate disengagemen of the doubled-back wires 16 with the pilot body 10 to permit them to again take the unrestrained position shown in FIG. 4,. It is then a simple matter to disengage the leading end of the ribbon from the two wire loops 15 and the doubled-back wires 16. The offsets 28 may then be engaged by the user's fingers to restore the device to the state shown in FIGS. 1 and 2 and thus make it safe to handle the device until it is again needed.

FIG. 7 shows how the device may be engaged with a ribbon 30 that is relatively narrow. It is apparent that in FIG. 7 the device places the leading end of the ribbon under somewhat greater tension than in FIG. 6. The tension is not great enough, however, to damage the ribbon. The pilot body 10 may be made of plastic, as shown and described herein. or it could be made of metal.

While I have shown and described in considerable detail what I believe to be the preferred form of my invention, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes may be made in the shape of the device without departing from the scope of the following claims.

What I claim is: 1. A lacing device for threading a ribbon through a tunnel, comprising:

a smooth pilot body dimensioned to pass through the tunnel;

a pair of resilient wires attached to said pilot body and extending rearwardly therefrom;

said wires being doubled back from their outer ends towards the pilot body, forming a pair of resilient two-wire arms with loops at the outer ends thereof, respectively, which are adapted to engage the ribbon material, the forward ends of said doubledback wires extending forwardly beyond the trailing edge of the pilot body, and said forward ends being pointed to penetrate the material of the ribbon; and

said pilot body having a cavity provided therein into which said forward ends of said wires can be in serted by springing the doubled-back ends of the wires toward the cavity, said forward ends of the wires being engaged and retained by spring tension in said cavity so as to shield the points thereof;

said two-wire arms being resiliently biased to spread said two loops apart a distance greater than the width of the ribbon when unrestrained, whereby engaging said loops with the leading end of the ribbon at transversely spaced points thereon causes the arms to place the leading end of the ribbon under transverse tension to hold the ribbon flat.

2. A lacing device as set forth in claim 1, wherein said pilot body is molded of plastic material; and wherein said pair of two-wire arms is made of a single piece of spring wire bent at its midpoint to form a forward loop between said pair of arms. said forward loop of said single wire being embedded in the plastic material of said pilot body.

3. A lacing device as set forth in claim I, in which said doubled-back wires are resiliently biased to spread laterally outward from said pilot body when the doubled-back wires are not restrained; said cavity in said pilot body having a narrow entrance slot formed in one lateral side of the pilot body, through which said forward ends of said doubled-back wires are inserted into the cavity; said cavity extending laterally beyond said narrow entrance slot to form undercut seats in which said forward ends of the wires are received when inserted through said narrow slot and released.

4. A combination as set forth in claim 3 in which the two wires that extend rearwardly from the pilot body define a plane;

and in which the doubled-back wires are formed with offsets extending away from said plane to serve as finger grips for engagement by the fingers of a user to flex the doubled-back wires towards each other and maneuvering the forward pointed ends of the doubled-back wires into and out of engagement with said pilot body. 

1. A lacing device for threading a ribbon through a tunnel, comprising: a smooth pilot body dimensioned to pass through the tunnel; a pair of resilient wires attached to said pilot body and extending rearwardly therefrom; said wires being doubled back from their outer ends towards the pilot body, forming a pair of resilient two-wire arms with loops at the outer ends thereof, respectively, which are adapted to engage the ribbon material, the forward ends of said doubled-back wires extending forwardly beyond the trailing edge of the pilot body, and said forward ends being pointed to penetrate the material of the ribbon; and said pilot body having a cavity provided therein into which said forward ends of said wires can be inserted by springing the doubled-back ends of the wires toward the cavity, said forward ends of the wires being engaged and retained by spring tension in said cavity so as to shield the points thereof; said two-wire arms being resiliently biased to spread said two loops apart a distance greater than the width of the ribbon when unrestrained, whereby engaging said loops with the leading end of the ribbon at transversely spaced points thereon causes the arms to place the leading end of the ribbon under transverse teNsion to hold the ribbon flat.
 2. A lacing device as set forth in claim 1, wherein said pilot body is molded of plastic material; and wherein said pair of two-wire arms is made of a single piece of spring wire bent at its midpoint to form a forward loop between said pair of arms, said forward loop of said single wire being embedded in the plastic material of said pilot body.
 3. A lacing device as set forth in claim 1, in which said doubled-back wires are resiliently biased to spread laterally outward from said pilot body when the doubled-back wires are not restrained; said cavity in said pilot body having a narrow entrance slot formed in one lateral side of the pilot body, through which said forward ends of said doubled-back wires are inserted into the cavity; said cavity extending laterally beyond said narrow entrance slot to form undercut seats in which said forward ends of the wires are received when inserted through said narrow slot and released.
 4. A combination as set forth in claim 3 in which the two wires that extend rearwardly from the pilot body define a plane; and in which the doubled-back wires are formed with offsets extending away from said plane to serve as finger grips for engagement by the fingers of a user to flex the doubled-back wires towards each other and maneuvering the forward pointed ends of the doubled-back wires into and out of engagement with said pilot body. 